The only poll that matters is the one on election day
Polls and debates add a rambunctious flavour to life the like of which is absent for years on end in New Zealand.
Fortunately, the colour returns every three years, even if such a short period between elections is probably not good for governance because it leads to short-termism.
It could be worse though. We could live in North Korea, for instance, where the Dear Leader scores a boring 99 per cent or so every, er, election.
Or at the other end of the influence scale, Belarus, where since 1994 el presidente Alexander Bananarepublic holds elections in which he regularlywins about 80 per cent of the vote.
Here in New Zealandwe had what used to be called an ‘‘elected dictatorship’’, if you can imagine two such words together, until 1996, as National and Labour swapped offices from time to time.
Occasionally the odd (literally) party would erupt out of nowhere, like Social Credit in Rangitı¯kei, where Bruce Beetham ruled the roost for a few years from 1978-84, to the bafflement of much of the rest of the country. But nobody dragged him away in chains or banished him from the country.
Instead, along came a bloke called Gerry Mander, they redrew the boundaries to shift Beetham’s home town of Marton out of Rangitı¯kei and bingo – hewas gone.
And Rangitı¯kei has forever since been back where it belongs, safely tucked up, sheep and all, with National.
Sadly, Beetham didn’t live to see the real game-changer of 1996, the country’s firstmmpelection and the arrival of Winston Peters’ NZ First. And close to every election since, National and Labour have had to put up with a third party, plus a bit more sometimes, sharing a slice of their power because neither has been able to get enough votes to rule alone.
But now, not for the first time, the polls are picking the demise of Peters and his party come October 17.
If they vanish again this election, it looks like the Greens will still be around to ensure the old gang of two don’t have everything their own way if their 6 per cent holds or improves.
The fate of NZ First, judging by the last Colmar-brunton poll, could become material for a pub quiz question: What do the New Conservatives, TOP, the Ma¯ori Party, Advance NZ and NZ First have in common?
They all polled 1 per cent in late September.
Massey University politics professor Richard Shaw, who knows a bit about these things, says polls help fill a need for people to know what others are thinking.
He sees polls as both a legitimate and important part of the democratic process because of the information they offer.
But an awful lot of other things also shape the way we vote, many of which have little to do with acting rationally and finding out what parties’ actual policies say.
Of course if you don’t like what a poll is saying about a party, then you can attack the poll, call it names like ‘‘rogue’’ and point out it gets you wrong.
Antony Woollams did just that at a candidates’ forum, organised by the Standard and Manawatu¯ People’s Radio, in Palmerston North when, echoing Peters, the NZ First Rangitı¯kei aspirant retorted that Colmar-brunton had got the party wrong in 2017, so he wasn’t too bothered by its latest 1 per cent finding.
Indeed, in its last poll before the 2017 election, Colmar-brunton put NZ First at 4.9, just below the crucial 5 per cent threshold, but the party scored 7.2 per cent on election night. So it is the trend that matters, not a single poll result.
The forumwas a chance to see and hear candidates talk about things like the ‘‘problem’’ of a Covid vaccine, Bill Gates, the United Nations getting too close to New Zealand and an ‘‘unfortunate incident’’ about which ACT’S Jack Phillips could say no more.
The Greens’ Teanau Tuiono revealed that at No 8 on the party list he’d make it into Parliament if the Greens kept polling at 6 per cent or better. Music to his ears – climate change was the issue of the day at the forum.
The party vote in Palmerston North did favour Labour by a mere 372 ahead of National in the 2017 election, but the electorate majority was rather more decisive – 6392. And Palmerstonnorth has been held continuously by Labour since 1978. Stronghold, anybody?
Alister Browne is an experienced Stuff scribe and former Press Gallery reporter who writes a weekly politics column